The biggest thing I've learnt since coming to be part of the #WritingCommunity here on Twitter is how important revisions are. I used to think "drafting" was getting the story right the first time, and "editing" was just finding the typos once that shiny first draft was done.

Needless to say, none of my early work had the sort of depth and complexity that I admired in other authors. The stories I told were flat. I just thought I wasn't smart enough to write the kind of books I wanted to read and just kind of accepted that.

A wrote a lot, though, and it was all great practice! I sharpened skills, got to know how to build characters, got the hang of dialogue and banter. Bit by bit, I built the skills I would need. And then I joined Twitter and everything changed.

I got to see how the writers I admire built their stories layer by layer. First drafts are just for me to figure out the vague shape of a story, and then revisions let me dig deeper, add layers, sew in threads that were missing before.

My banquet scene, my problem child, which has been written a million times to get the tension just right. I think I'm finally, FINALLY, happy with it, thanks to all this insane scribbling: